Scheu Park

For whatever reason and for the longest time, Scheu Park has always fascinated me. Maybe it was because of where I grew up on Buffalo’s East Side and these types of residential parks were not common in the landscape of my part of town.

Scheu Park sits in the Bailey-Walden neighborhood of Buffalo. I used to walk through it a lot on my way to go swimming at Schiller Park. About 20 years ago, I discovered it was named after former Buffalo Mayor Solomon Scheu.

He came to the United States in 1839 to live with an uncle and a brother in New York City, and learned the baker‘s trade. In 1844, he removed toBuffalo, New York, where his brother Jacob lived. They opened a bakery, later a grocery business, and then a malt factory. In 1847, he married Wilhelmina Rink, and they had seven sons and a daughter.

He entered politics as a Democrat, and was alderman from the Sixth Ward in 1854 and 1855. He was Receiver of Taxes from 1856 to 1859. He was an Alderman again in 1866 and 1867.

In November 1877, he was elected Mayor of Buffalo by a slim margin in a three-way race, defeating the incumbent Republican Philip Becker (vote: Scheu 8,756; Becker 8,159; Edward Bennett, Tax Payers Party, 6,216). He was in office from January 7, 1878, to January 1880, but was defeated for re-election in 1879 by Alexander Brush (vote: Brush 13,721; Scheu 12,189). In 1887, he ran again for Mayor but was defeated by the incumbent Philip Becker (vote: Becker 17,925; Scheu 17,451).